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THE) PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE— PARTY-UNITY-THE SOUTH 
ON THE DEFENSIVE. 



SPEECH 



OF 



^ 



HON. AUGUSTUS E. MAXWELL, 



OF FLORIDA, 



DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JANUARY 27, 1957. 




The House being in Committee of tbe Whole 
on the state of the Union — 

Mr. MAXWELL said: 

Mr. Chairman, I dislike, at this stage of the 
'session, to interrupt the legitimate business be- 
fore us, and perhaps I do wrong to continue the 
discussion of general subjects, I would not risk 
this, were it at all probable that such discussion 
would cease if I refrained. As it is not, and I 
have been unfortiuiate in my efforts to obtain the 
lloor, and as the example has been set me by 
others, I may as well say new what I could not 
get an opportunity to say at the proper time. 

I have wished to notice some comments upon 
the President and his message, though I will 
not follow the gentleman from Maryland, [Mr. 
Davis,] or others, in discussing at large the pro- 
prieties of the message, its history, reasoning, 
or conclusions. 

So far as these relate to the agitation which has 
recently convulsed the country, I am satisfied 
with it in every particular. My confidence in 
the man, or his views, has not been shaken. The 
admirable exposition he has given of the state 
of the Union, could not have been but incom- 
plete if he had ignored the controversy which 
has filled the m.inds of all the people for the last 
few months, and which was itself full of threat- 
ening against the peace and security of the coun- 
try. He v/as forbid, by every sign around him, 
to regard it as a. mere party controversy, with 
which a President should not deal. It had risen 
to an awful magnitude of danger, alarming every 
patriotin the land. That he should have touched 
it, therefore, set it forth Ijefore us, explained his 
own policy in regard to it, was most natural, and 
scarcely to be avoided. That he should have done 
this in other spirit or terms than those character- 
izing the message, could not have been expected 
by any one familiar with his political opinions and 
previous public action. He had no need to sugar 
his words to suit the tastes of those whose taking 
offense was a predetermined, inevitable thing. 
A grave subject was before him, and it imposed 



! a sterner duty than trifling niceties of speech in 
I deference to the tender feelings of opposing parti- 
zans. That duty he performed; and in this, as 
! ever before, he has been a man true alike to him- 
j self and to liis country — consistent, right-minded, 
: honestly patriotic. Undaunted by difficulties, 
1 undissolved by the pretended commiseration of 
, his enemies, unshaken by t!ic loss of favor, or 
! by the taunts of those who preyed upon his sup- 
! posed misfortunes to satiate their vengeful appe- 
j tites, he has steadily pursued his course; some- 
times, it may be, mistaken as to the right path, at 
I others misled, but always going on, determined 
j to reach at last a proper destination. It is not 
I Only as a southern representative, it is as one 
! having an equal regard for every portion of tlio 
: Union, and every interest in it, that I honor him, 
I and thank him for his firm adherence to the cause 
j-of the Constitution, and for his scalous advocacy 
, of tlie rights it secures, and his bold defense of 
those rights against powerful assaults. 
I It may be well enough for some gentlemen to 
express indifference as to his views, or even pity 
i for his weakness as a fallen man; but it cannot 
I have escaped observation, tiiat while thoy do tlria 
! they exhibit a sensitiveness under his expose 
, quite incompatible with either. If we may judge 
i from the many efforts we have witnessed, from 
I that of the chairman of your leading committee, 
j [Mr. Campdell, of Ohio,] and that of the gen- 
! tleman from Maryland, [Mr. Dams,] down to 
I that of the gentleman from Ohio, who last ad- 
dressed you, [Mr. Bliss,] to parry the force of 
; his message, we are not permitted to regard it as 
the weak twaddle of a dishonoVcd or dying man. 
There must be something in it of life, of vigor, 
[ of power — something to alarm and stir the energy 
' of opposition, or else it would have gone unques- 
: tionea to our committees and our printer. But 
I that would not do. It had to be arrested until 
! his opponents could exhaust their wrath in it.s 
i denunciation — until they could hack and balte 
[ its core to acquit their fears. They are engage'. 
j as I am glad to believe, in a vain labor. It l-ts 
its place on the record, and will tell its storyof 



\; 



^43 5 



justice to all men, of faithfulness to all the coun- 
try, unto the people everywhere. That he cor- 
rectly apprehends and sets forth the meaning of 
the rt'cent election I hold to be most evident — his 
main deduction being that the geographical or 
sectional party of the country was condemned. 
This is unquestionably true. And I believe it to 
be also true, that the party which was uplield in 
the posscs.sion of the Government, and author- 
ized to continue its control, was the one which 
most fully recognizes the ccjuality of the States, 
and the equal rights of their respective citizens. 
A policy which can suit every portion of the 
Union, as opposed to that which advances one 
portion at the expense of the other — a policy not 
so much of action, as of abstinence from action, 
and one which cannot provoke a complaint of 
aggression from either side, because it holds 
itself denied the exercise of any power to favor 
or to interfere with either, was " sanctioned and 
announced" as the right policy. 

But it is not my purpose to undertake a de- 
tailed defense either of the President or his mes- 
sage. I am willing, and I am sure he may well 
be willing, that through any the worst present 
ordeal, both may pass to their proper places in 
the history of the country. As yet, the message 
has encountered little more than the broadest con- 
tradiction, with only the idlest hypercriticism; 
and I must say that that of the gentleman from 
Maryland [Mr. Davis] was of a kind better 
suited to some other forum than to this body of 
■which it is his fortune to be a foremost member. 
He seems to exult in the idea that the compla- 
cency of the President in his references to the 
result of the recent election is not warranted by 
the majority of the popular vote. Can it be that 
my friend objects to the congratulatory strain in 
■which the President speaks of the defeat of^scc- 
tionalists .' Or does he permit a passing allusion 
to the defeat of his own party to check the cur- 
rent of his satisfaction at the overthrow of the 
greatly stronger party whose narrow organiza- 
tion he himself so sternly condemned .' Sir, I 
ask him what he has ^ainfd when he has shown 
that the fact disclosed by the recent election is 
that the majority of the people of the United 
States is opposed to the present men in power, 
opposed to the present Auniinistration, opposed 
to continuing its policy, opposed to the Kansas- 
Nebraska act, opposed to aivers other things said 
to be held in favor by the Democratic party, of 
M'hich he made mention? The same process by 
•which he arrives at this conclusion certainly 
bhows that an overwhelming majority of the 
people i.s opposed to the men and the measures 
of the Republican party; and probably he will 
admit that it also sliows the majority not just yet 
disposed to trust the men or the measures of the 
Anif-rican party. What, then, has he gained? 
Why, simply tnat the majority of the intelligent, 
8elf-gov( riling American people is opposed to all 
men and to any policy, aim that this glorious 
«»untry of ours is brought to a stand-still. I 
think, Mr. Chairman, that my reasoning is as 
good as his, and equally suits the gravity of a 
■talesman, when it brings rne to the eonclusion 
that we are led out of the difficulty in which he 
»iui places us by the Constitution; and tin refore, 
a> through that the DemoTatic party is continued 
invowcr, the Consliiulion really ducted our can- 



didate. With such indorsement and warrant, he 
should not complainif that party thinks itself still 
empowered to carry on the Government after its 
old habit. 

In a right view of the nature of our Govern- 
ment, the popular will — the only popular will we 
are permitted to regard — must be admitted as 
having decidi dly favored the choice of Mr. Buch- 
anan, and, through him, the continuance of Dem- 
ocratic policy. It is not simply that he received 
more votes than either of the other candidates, 
or that he received a majority of the States. It 
is that a majority of the people of the United 
States, through the only mode by which we can 
constitutionally ascertain their will, is commit- 
ted to a preference for him overall others. Does 
the gentleman ask how I reach this result ? I 
answer him, by regarding this, not as a consol- 
idated, but as a Federal Government. There is 
no such will to be recognized as that of the ma- 
jority of the whole people. We must go to the 
Stales in search of the true popular will, for it is 
only through them, each expressing the will of 
her own people, separate and independent of all 
the others, that we can correctly arrive at it. 
Maryland, in casting her vote for Mr. Fillmore, 
informs us that the will of her people would make 
him President; and that must be taken as not 
merely what the majority would do, but as the 
will of all. And so of the other States. Now, 
taking the rule thus indicated to guide our calcu- 
lations — summing up the aggregate vote of the 
States which preferred Mr. Buchanan, and giving 
all the others to his opponents, he will be elected 
by some two hundred and fifty thousand major- 
ity. And herein, sir, may be found, for all those 
who need it, a lesson in the philosophy, and 
frame and working of our institutions, which 
it would be well for us to understand and appre- 
ciate, but which the errors of a laiitudinarian 
construction of the Constitution have too often 
and too much obscured. I doubt not Mr. Buch- 
anan will be able to gather instruction from it 
which will serve to console him for that con- 
demnation in advance which the gentleman from 
Maryland so unkindly flaunts in his face. 

But the lemark.s of the gentleman I wish to 
notice more particularly, were those exposing, ns 
he imagined, the fatal want of unity in the Dem- 
ocratic party. In this connection I will say, I 
have listened with some degree of anxiety to tlie 
discussion which has been going on in reference 
to the late political canvass, and its result. I have 
felt anxiety because when it is charged, and the 
impression is sought to be made upon the country, 
that the northern wing of the Democratic party 
obtained its large vote through deceitful practices, 
by which the people were led to believe that it 
was a good Free-Soil party, a question is raised, 
a doubt suggested, about something ■which 1 
thought had been fully put to rest by every form 
of contradiction, spoken, written, and acted. 
What I had heard from llie prominent men of 
that wing of the party, what I had read from their 
pens, the votes I had seen ihom give, and all 
their recent action when the subject of slavery 
was involved, had convinced me that, so farfrom 
entertaining Free-Soil views, or wishing them 
adopted by Congress, they held in the main a. 
sound constitutional position — certainly much 
sounder than any taken by other parties of the 



same section, if tried by the same tests. Their 
ready and enthusiastic acceptance of the princi- 
ples announced in the Cincinnati platform on this 
subject, which were satisfactory to the southern 
people, could but confirm this conviction. The 
sort of man they so zealously supported for the 
Presidency, whose avowed, well-known princi- 
ples, and whose whole career, prominently re- 
corded, marked him as one not at all disposed to 
countenance Free-Soil agitation in any shape, left 
no room for suspicion or distrust of them. Be- 
sides this, the very basis of opposition to them, 
the very charge upon which they were arraigned 
for condemnation, the one very thing which was 
urg^d as their crime, by the heterogeneous Re- 
publican party, was, that they belonged to a pro- 
slavery party. 

If, after all this, the boldness with which the 
Democratic party have been accused by both Re- 
publicans and Americans — in fraternal union still 
when the work of war upon the Democratic party 
is to be undertaken — should have caused some 
anxiety, who will say that what we have since 
heard from the accused themselves is not sufficient 
to remove it? For one, the gentleman from Mary- 
land says that; but the incredulous ear takes in a 
plain story reluctantly. There are none so deaf 
as those who will not hear. That between Dem- 
ocrats there is a difference of opinion on some 
points, as he urges, is undeniably true; but that 
this difference leads to any different policy on the 
part of Congress, is just as undeniably untrue. 
And this is the point which gentlemen obstinately 
refuse to look at, or else they could not be so 
mistaken in their view of Democratic organiza- 
tion. For instance, while some hold slavery to 
be an evil, and doubtless so declare unreservedly, 
and others hold a contrary belief, yet they agree 
perfectly as to the duty upon Congress to abstain 
from interference with it. So, too, while some 
advocate what is called " squatter sovereignty," 
and others oppose it, yet there is no difference 
between them as to what shall be the action of 
Congress; for the "squatter sovereignty" doc- 
trine concedes the essential point insisted upon 
by its opponents, that the question of slavery in 
the Territories is one not within the sphere of 
congressional action. Now, the man who sees 
that in Federal politics we organize parties and 
announce principles in reference only to Federal 
measures, will see that, notwithstanding the dif- 
ferences mentioned, there can be, as there really 
is, a true unity of action. Their difference is of 
that kind which their agreement in constitutional 
doctrine as to the powers of Congress puts entirely 
out of the way. That difference cannot be reached 
but by overriding this fundamental doctrine. 
While the doctrine stands, it cannot go into the 
sphere to which the national party holding it 
belongs, and hence can never be an operating 
difference in that sphere. Elsewhere it might be 
otherwise. In the sphere of territorial politics, 
it would produce conflict. But while we hold 
that this latter sphere shall not be entered by the 
national Democratic party, organized with refer- 
ence to Federal objects alone, it can cause no 
conflict, nor lead to the divisions which our 
opponents so industriously insist should destroy 
us. 

The true explanation of the unity of the Dem 
ocratic party, notwithstanding the diversities of 



opinion alleged against it, is, that it is neiiher a 
pro-slavery nor an anti-slavery party. It holds 
that whatever may be the opinion of this man or 
that man in reference to slavery, the Constitu- 
tion forbids him to thrust that opinion upon the 
theater of the Federal Government. He must 
be content with private indulgence of his views, 
so far as every State or Territory but his own 
maybe affected; though in this, whether State or 
Territory, he is at liberty, and it is his duty as 
an intelligent citizen, to exercise those views, 
when he may properly do so, as he may deem 
best for the local good* But outside of that, when 
acting in connection with those of other States 
and Territories, where the citizen has the same 
privilege that he in his enjoys, he must leave the 
subject to be dealt with as those locally interested 
may prefer. Mark the simplicity of the distinc- 
tion. A local Government for local purposes, a 
national Government for national purposes; a 
local party for local purposes, a national party 
for national purposes. It is the very distinc- 
tion characterizing our system of Government 
in which is lodged its greatest security — the lead- 
ing, fundamental distinction by whieh we secure 
the largest liberty of the citizen, and at the same 
time the most effective agency for his protection. 
A party that in its organization and objects thus 
adopts the very spirit of our institutions, and 
plants itself upon a basis corresponding with' that 
upon which rests the superstructure of the Amer- 
ican Government, cannot but commend itself, as 
it has so often done, to the confidence of the 
people. By those who understand it, its triumphs 
can be traced to far deeper sources than that 
which has been so liberally insinuated in this 
discussion — the gullible ignorance of the masses. 

Now, sir, under this view of the proper sphere 
and business of a national party, I can well con- 
ceive that, in the late canvass, northern Demo- 
crats may have expressed a repugnance to the 
establishment of slavery in Kansas, just as south- 
ern Democrats may have expressed a wish that 
it should be established there; for, differing in 
this, they nevertheless could cordially unite and 
act together upon their agreeing idea, that Con- 
gress has no commission to enforce the preference 
of either — no power to establish it, or to prevent 
it from being established; and therefore their 
wishes in the matter can have nothing to do with 
their party objects, and could not interfere with 
the result. 

I repeat, sir, the Democratic party is neither 

pro-slavery nor anti-slavery. Not pro-slavery, 

because it has no business with the question; 

not anti-slavery, for the same reason. All it pro- 

i poses on the subject is to recognize and protect 

I the institution to the extent thai the Constitution 

I recognizes and protects it — nothing more, nothing 

less. 

If gentlemen will take this fact into their nrjinds, 
they will readily see that the bond of affiliation 
between northern and southern Democrats bears 
upon if only the great seal of the Constitution. 
That attests their common obligations — their 
obligations as coequals in a common Union. 
Their separate obligations, those which rest upon 
them as members of different States, confined each 
to his own, have no mention in the bond. They 
are excluded from it. They cannot properly get 
there. They are left as correlatives of those 



powers " not delegnted to the Uiiiti d States by , 
the Constitution, nor proliibiicd by it to the 
States, [which] iu"e reserved to the States respect- 
ively, or to liie poo[)le." 

Mr. Cliairmaii, tliis fraternal war of Americans 
and Republituins upon the Democratic party, 
while sustained by a common enmity, is waijed 
by movements to very opposite jioiius. The 
Americans are seeking to deslroy southern con- 
fidence in tlie party, while the Republicans are 
seeking to destroy northern confidence in it. The 
former woidd produce the belief that the southern 
people have been duped iiflo the adnussion of \ 
Free-Soil allies to their camp; the latter, that the i 
northern people have, to some extent, been duped j 
into the admission of pro-slavery allies to theirs, j 
The ditfereiice between them is, that, while the i 
Americans readily accept such munitions as the 
Republicano are disposed to furnish for the south- 
ern field of operations, the latter, thus generous,! 
because what they contribute can be of no avail 
to themselves, on the contrary would incumber | 
them, must move to their point of attack, care- 1 
fully stripped of every piece of armor and every 
weapon which would serve the former. It would : 
not suit them to show to their section , as it would 
suit the Americans to show to the South, that 
jiorthern Democrats are advancing Free-Soil ob- 
jects; and hence, when they have paraded news- 
paper'paragraphs, and exhibited placards about 
"free Kansas," to furnish aid and comfort to our j 
southern opponents, they slop short, wheel round, [ 
and charge that all this was intended to deceive] 
the northern people, inasmuch as it is well known I 
here that northern Democrats are really strength- , 
ening pro-slavery men and pro-slavery schemes, j 

It is evident, sir, that there is some mistake i 
between them. It is equally evident to me that 
it arises from the party solicitude of Americans : 
to fasten Free-Soil objects upon northern Demo- j 
crals, and of Republicans to fasten pro-slavery ] 
objects upon them, when in fact neither is right 
— the truth being, as I have insisted, and as you 
have heard them declare here again and again, 
that they 'regard and treat the subject of slavery \ 
in the Territories as without the jurisdiction of . 
Congress, where no opinion of theirs, whether i 
fbr or against it, can rightfully be permitted to : 
interfere one way or the oilier. How easy to | 
avoid the mistake, if gentlemen would look at' 
the facts directly, and not through a distorted j 
medium! I rejoice to know that the people have; 
the inl<;lligence to use their own unclouded vision, ' 
and that they have wisely distinguished between j 
individual preference and Federal governmental 
authority to enforce that preference — between a j 
party of national scope and a party of Stale or 
territorial scope — between an opinion for practice j 
and an opinion for Huncombe. j 

lftliigiiiili;miin from Maryland will study more 
carefully wherein consists the unity and strength 
of the Democratic party, despite the diversities 
of opinion upon v.hich he dwells, he may easily j 
relieve himself from the fear he expresses — or' 
perhaji.s it was a hope — that its dissolution is I 
near nt hand. Thai once j>roud and powerful , 
party, as he styles it, he will find possessing! 
tlemriits of life which no breath of i)a8sion or' 
jircjudi'-i; can ili.ssolve. It has little felir of its 
own for the future, and has been t0(» often told 
by others that it was in a dying condition, to be 



alarmed now by a repetition of the story. Tlie 
gentleman does well, therefore, to amuse his 
fancy with graphic pictures of the scenes to be 
enacted around iVIr. Buchanan when he shall conre 
to take his position at the helm of State. It is a 
cheap gratification, but he must be content to 
enjoy it, as he is doing, only in fancy. Some- 
how or other, this unartistic, homebred, simple- 
minded, stubborn, self-willed, independent Dem- 
ocratic ])arty, will go on successfully doing its 
own work in its own way, not dreaming that a 
laugh at its expense can affect or hinder the free 
course of its earnest, honest purpose. It feels 
more concern, however, when arraigned as a 
" disturber of the public peace," and I must tell 
the gentleman he is unkind in making such a 
charge after a solemn verdict of acquittal by the 
people — or, if he will have it so, after acquittal by 
the Constitution upon the findijig of the people. 

It is not difficult to see what the Republicans 
are aiming to accomplish by renewing their war- 
fare upon the Democratic party. They have 
found it a stumbling-block in the way of their 
progress, resisting and checking the sectional 
animosity by which they are hurried on and 
governed; and in the hour of defeat they would 
gladly prepare the field for a better fortune in the 
future. But as to the Americans, led on by their 
chiefs from Kentucky and Maryland, [Messrs. 
H. M.vRsiiALL and Davis,] I confess myself 
unable to discover what they are to accomplish., 
unless it be the mere gratification of party spite. 
Suppose them successful in establishing the un- 
soundness of northern Democrats in the view of 
the southern people: what follows? Anything 
from which they, as Union-loving men, can de- 
rive comfort.' Anything upon which they can 
build a hope either for themselves or for the coun- 
try.' Take away these northern Democrats, and 
who are left.' Who but Republicans? None, sir, 
save only a few straggling, powerless bands of 
Americans? And shall we look to their weak- 
ness for the strength, to their death for the life, 
which is to relieve us in such friendh'ss desertion c 
But, join these Democrats in a common purpose 
with the Republicans, or in a purpose leading to 
the same end, and where are we then r The North 
against the South, united each, waiting only for 
the opportune moment, the full ripe season, to 
begin their deadly contlict. I can see no other 
result of that state of the northern mind, which 
will be shown when the Americans shall have 
established their charge. Let them prove it, and 
they have but proved that the South must soon- 
yield to subjugation, or else that we arc hastening 
to a convulsion from which there can be noescape 
— to a doom which will wrap up these Stales in 
a darkness the darkest. 1 do not envy them the 
satisfaction they are thus to achieve; nor do I 
appreciate the simply querulous tone, sometimes 
flippant tone, in which they speak of this state 
of things, when it is one that shi)uld bury all 
thought or speech, if nol in despair, in the one 
sole, stern resolve to prepare a readiness for the 
worst. 

I will not argue with the gentleman upon the 
justice and propriety of the removal of the Mis- 
souri restriction. It is bad enough to have that 
to do with the avowed friends of tiie Republican 
party. But that a southern man, whatever may 
have been his views of the expediency of the 



measure at the time, should join them now in 
deprecating and denouncing it, in the face of the 
braggart spirit wliich warns his section that its 
day of peace shall come no more till anti-slavery 
vengeance shall have accomplished its work, and 
notwithstanding the purpose of the measure to 
restore equality of right to the people he repre- 
sents, is more than passing strange. It borders 
upon the fatal step v/hich plunges into the angry 
flood to become a part of its wild-rushing, de- 
structive power. No, sir; in a time like this, 
and upon such a subject, I prefer to use the little 
strength I have, not in a contest with collaterals, 
but in resisting the legitimate chiefs of the anti- 
slavery movement. 

I hear much said by these about the over- 
weening desire of the South to extend her polit- 
ical power — about the restless ambition with 
which she grasps far the control of the Federal 
Government. You hear it in this Hall every day, 
and it is worth our wiiile to inquire what amount 
of truth there is in the charge. What do gentle- 
men mean by such an accusation? That the 
South seeks to gaLa power antagonistic to any 
end for which the Union was formed? That she 
has objects of her own to accomplish which con- 
flict with the true objects of our Government, 
and cannot be attained without detriment to other 
portions of the Union? This must be the idea. 
No one would wish to be considered as objecting 
to any natural or proper growth of her strength. 
It is, then, a charge that her aim and efforts are 
directed to her own aggrandizement for her own 
peculiar purposes, as opposed to purposes right 
in themselves, and held in proper regard by all 
the other States. Is this true? 

Why, Mr. Chairman, the extremest of south- 
ern statesmen, so far as I know, have never gone 
further than to insist that a balance between the 
sections should be preserved in the Senate; and 
this, not with a view to give undue weight to 
southern influence, but to secure southern insti- 
tutions against external interference. An equality 
in the Senate could give no superior power there; 
and even if it should, through the ascendency of 
individuals of the body, there would always be a 
check in this House, where the free States can 
never be deprived of their large majority of Rep- 
resentatives. To acquire and keep this much, 
therefore, the utmost that is asked, would confer 
no ability to shape the public policy at will, much 
less to shape it to any exclusive sectional end. It 
would only furnish reliable security against the 
superior power of the other side — a security which 
would never have been thought necessary or de- 
sirable if the same could have been found in the 
kindly, fraternal sentiment ^vhich our fathers 
hoped would bind us together indissolubly. 

You perceive, sir, that it is ability for defense 
v/hich is sought by this proposition. Had there 
been no outcry against our institutions; had there 
been no scheming to interfere with them, no at- 
tempted restrictions to familiarize the mind with 
attacks upon them, no hostile prejudice nursed 
and disseminated against them, the South would 
have reposed in quiet contentment, careless of the 
distribution of political power, because proudly 
confident of justice to herself under any distri- 
bution, however unequal. This desire for equal- 
ity of power, not for full equahty, but only for 
that in one branch of the legislative department 



of the Government, which will cnablo her to frel 
secure of protection for the rights of her citizens, 
proceeds from no over-ambitious motive. What 
lias she done to authorize any suspicion of sucli 
a motive? She asks but to be let alone. Any 
right she claims is claimed as already existing 
from the adoption of the Constitution, and not 
as a new gift. In all that she has said, or de- 
manded, or done,if honestly and fairly construed, 
you find her looking only to the defensive. Power 
to resist aggression is the utmost she would have 
through the action of this Government; and this 
not by positive aid, but by free, equal, uninvidi- 
ous permission to take her chances for a share 
of the common territory. Satisfy her people 
that you do not mean war upon their institutions, 
and even that much no one would seriously care 
for. I am sure, sir, there would have been no 
disposition on her part to set aside the Missouri 
line — although almost universally believed to have 
been wrongly imposed — if she had not been con- 
tinually harassed by hostile efforts to deprive her 
of an equal right in the country south of that line. 
And it is in these efforts the gentleman from 
Ohio [Mr. Bingham] will find the explanation of 
that seeming departure from the precedents since 
1820, to which he refers in support of his asser- 
tion of unlimited congressional power over sla- 
very in the Territories. While tnere was a hope 
that that line would be respected by others, the 
South was willing to let it remain; and any action 
of hers, or of her statesmen, acquiescing in its 
terms, north or south of the line, was based upon 
that willingness thus induced, and not upon ab- 
solute approval of the line itself, or acknowl- 
edgment of the power to establish it. She has 
been provoked to reassert the equal rights of her 
citizens, and then, forsooth, is held chargeable 
with grasping ambition ! She gets back what 
she has lost, and is held responsible as a wicked 
aggressor. 

It is simply a misrepresentation of the South 
to say that she strives for more power than 
enough to protect and preserve herself. She has 
not the folly to suppose she can ever acquire even 
an equality of power^vith the North, nor has she 
any especial desire for it, except, as I have said, 
for defensive purposes. If there were ao.danger 
that the power of the North, instead of bcin» 
used solely for th# common good, would be used 
to strike her — if the course of events had per- 
mitted her to rest secure in the belief that tficre 
was no purpose to array the General Government 
upon a policy of discrimination against her — if, in 
short, she did not see that enmity to her institu- 
tions was ripening itself for a breach into their 
stronghold, she would have no concern as to the 
ej^ent to which that power might surpass her 
own. It will be apparent to any one who will 
take the trouble to understand her position, that 
any anxiety she manifests to maintain a partial 
equality of political power, is the anxiety of a 
weaker party to guard itself against abusive treat- 
ment by the stronger. How far removed from 
an aggressive spirit! And yet, this is made a 
ground upon which to arraign her for cherishing 
an unholy lust for power. 

But gentlemen take offense at the President 
for justifying this southern sense of insecurity, 
which he does by pointing to the revolutionary 
tendency of recent organizations founded on anti- 



6 



rlarery sentiment; and they would persuade us 
that no blow is niined at our institutions, and thiit 
wc do wrong lo nusjKCt them of harmful designs. 
Mr. Chiiirnmn, tluy decchve themselves, or are 
tryin» to deotive us. Even the gentleman from 
iMaryland [Mr. Davis] will tell them that. If 
they art" innocent of mischievous intention, they 
arc none the le^^s working to mischievous ends. 
They are induljjing a habit of thought in con- 
demnation of slavery, which, as it grows upon 
them, becomes more and more eager for expres- 
Bioa in practical action. They are ever feeding 
a prejudice, which becomes proporlionably rest- 
less of restraint the more it is pampered. They 
are following the track of a single idea, till it is 
leading them to a point beyond which the tyraimy 
of tlie uund will permit no turning aside, nor any 
turnin? back. They are obeying a law of prog- 
ress, the same that poor human nature obeys 
when yielding to temptation in some weak point, 
abandoning principle and virtue for some tempo- 
rary gratification, it finds itself more easily mis- 
led a second time, and ever afterwards, until it is 
finally driven to adopt the society and the prac- 
tices of the dissolute. It might be profitable for 
thein to remember that 

" Vice i» a monster of so rriplilful mien 
A*, to be hated, iieedn but lo bo seen ; 
Yel, keen i<Ki olt, lannliar with her I'ace, 
W'c i\t:,t endure, tlien pity, llicn embrace." 

If abolitionism be the vice from which they 
have been shrinking, it is nevertheless abolition- 
ism they are enduring, pitying, almost embrac- 
ing. The history of the northern wing of the old 
Whig party, its gradual absorption into section- 
alism, 18 instructive and full of warning on this 
point; and so is the history of those men of the 
Democratic party, who, first yielding to erro- 
neous views of the power of Congress over sla- 
very, have gone on till they, too, are urging the 
demands of sectionalism. Thus is their progress. 
They march on, and deny that they march — 
march on again, and still deny that they march; 
and, if not reformed by an awakened sense of 
the dangers of their evil course, will continue 
this till the end is before them with all its horrors. 

The leading Abolitionists understand this bet- 
ter, and congratulated themselves accordingly 
upon the complexion of the late canvass. Hence 
you hear Gerrit Smith saying, Uiat the few rad- 
ical Abolitionists " who ret'use to vote for Colonel 
Fremont are, after all, to be numbered among the 
most effective supporters of his election;" leave 
them, therefore, " to ply the jiublic mind with 
their radical doctrines, and tlien," » » » 
" however they shall vote, Colonel Fremont will 
have been a great gainer;" and Wendell Phillip.s 
saying, that tlie Republiam is " the first sectional 
party ever organized in this country. It does not 
Know its own face, and it calls itself national; but 
it i.i not national — it is sectional. It is the North 
nrniyed against the South;" and Garrison saying, 
when he gave his "judgment of the Ilej)ublican 
party," that in "proportion to the growth of dis- 
unionism will bi- the growth of Ilepublicanism and 
Frce-Soihsm," and that an examination of the 
map of MaHHrtcliuHi tts would show " that in those 
jilaces wher<- theri- are the imiHi Abolitionists who 
nave disfranchiKcd theniHelves for conscience and 
for thu hIuvc'h sake, the heaviest vote is thrown 
for the Frcc-Suil ticket." These men, standing 



forward, thus hail the coming on of their co- 
workers. They are patient with any reluctance 
they witness; for, if tne march is slow,atil! there 
is progress, and they feel assured their waiting 
will be rewarded. 

The South is not mistaken. The leaders of 
the Republican parly have let loose a wild spirit 
against her which they cannot control if they 
would; and if it does not exhaust itself in its 
furious conflict with the better spirit of their .scq- 
tion, its career of mischief is but begun, for it 
treads a path that leads through " burning cities, 
and ravaged fields, and slaughtered populations. "' 
Our only hope is, that as in the past, so in the 
future, the Democratic party will stand as a firm 
barrier to meet and check tlie danger — that as the 
solid rock receives the surging wave and dashes 
it into spray, so will that party receive and dis- 
embody the encroaching tide of anti-slavery 
fanaticism. 

The excuses urged for disturbing our peace 
are not of a kind to weaken our conviction that a 
great wrong is threatened. Are we reminded, as 
by the gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. Bisgham,] of 

I the excellency of freedom, and censured that we 

! smother it in the oppressions and outrages of 

' slavery ? This imports nothing less than that 
slavery should be extinguished, and, whether we 
will or not, extinguished by those who have a 

; better understanding of its injustice than we have. 
Do we hear lamentations over the condition of 
the negro.' The inference is inevitable that the 

' negro should be relieved, and, as we will not re- 
lieve him, that it should be done by others who 
are more humane. Is the condition of the white 
man in the slave States deplored? You cannot 
resist the idea that something more is meant than 

i idle wailing. Are we upbraided that the South 
is inert, stagnant, desolate, unskilled in the move- 
ments of the age, and withal blind and presump- 
tuous.' Who can believe that the painting of 

I such a picture for our inspection has no other end 

! than to gratify our tastes, or mortify our vanity ? 

1 It answers no purpose to show that all such 

I excuses for harassing us are founded in aviciou." 
philanthropy, or in mistaken views of the life and 

I condition of the South. A visionary love of free- 
dom prevents the access of correct knowledge, 
and colors the one fact of slavery with a black- 
ness that darkens all else. For in.stance, what 
would it avail to show to the Free-Soil partisan 
that the South is not, as he insists, lying under 
a blight of desolation — that she has, in fact, mul- 
tiplied her population, both white and black, mul- 
tiplied her schools, her colleges, her churches, 
her railroads, her productions, her commerce, her 

I wealth, at a rate UDi^iiproached in the history of 
progress, except by her sister States— that her 
older States, notwithstanding they have contrib- 
uted largely, even lavishly, to the building up of 
her newer ones, some of wiiich have outstripped 
them, have grown and strengthened and im- 
proved the condition of their people steadily, 
through every decade.' A mere glance at the 
census will exhibit these facts; and yet they weigh 
nothing in the minds of those who decry our in- 
stitutions. The free States having progressed 
more rapidly in some respects, they look only 
to this, fill tliiir minds with an exaggerated con- 
trast, and exalt themselves to a superiority which 

I their great modesty forbids them to ultributi 



to anything but the bad influence of slavery. 
If they could be led to imagine for a moment 
that there is no North, or could forget her ex- 
istence while looking elsewhere, then perha])s 
they would be able to discover that the progress 
of the South has been constant, rapid, grand, 
wonderful; and that there is much to admire and 
commend in the growth of her feeble colonies 
into a mighty empire, in the march of her bold 
pioneers through the wilderness, hewing the way 
for the approach of other States with their stand- 
ards of civilization, their emblems of greatness, 
and their armories of power, and in the energy 
and hardy industry with which she has advanced 
the fruits of her soil into an unexampled control- 
ling magnitude in the commerce and markets of 
the world. But all this is shut out from their 
point of vision. Why? Because they are ab- 
sorbed with enmity to our institutions, and with 
the self-complacent idea that their own should 
be forced in to supplant them; because they are 
being led captive by a habit of mind which con- 
cerns itself only with war upon slavery, and 
which will not be satisfied to release them short 
of its extermination. 

The President is right, Mr. Chairman. Those 
who have joined the Free-Soil movement have 
" entered into a path which leads nowhere, un- 
less it be to civil war and disunion, and which 
has no other possible outlet." To believe other- 
wise is to believe that the South will submit to 



all that she holds to be wrong, unjust, unconsti- 
tutional, and destructive. 

When I Gontemplatc the arraying of a strong 
party, bent upon giving the direction to northern 
power, dictated by the prevalent anti-slavery sen- 
timent, and unmindful of the high guarantees by 
which southern rights were meant to be secured, 
and can find no opposing organization but that 
of the Democratic party of sufficient strength to 
withstand its aggressive purposes, it cannot be 
surprising that I should indulge the pride of a 
partisan in the result of the recent election. 
What is it, in fact, but the pride of patriotism ? 
A great calamity to the country has been arrested 
— arrested by my party, and shall I not join the 
President in words of satisfaction that it is so ? 
With all my heart I do. I shall accept the 
triumph as the promise of a still hopeful future, 
trusting that the incoming counsels will be ruled 
by the wisdom, discretion, and courage so much 
needed to keep down the adversary, and to per- 
petuate the power which conquers usurpation 
and wrong. But should this trust fail, and the 
sectional party continue to grow, then — but I 
will not speak despondingly. Even then it may 
be that a higher wisdom would but prepare to 
enforce anew the old lesson — 

"Jove strikes the Titans down. 
Not when they set about their mountain piling, 
But when another roclc would crown their work." 



Printed at the Office of the Congressional Globe, 



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